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Random Thing up My Ass du Jour

What is up with the way some people insist on viewing willingness to eat sushi as this shibboleth of sophistication? In my experience, admitting that you don’t enjoy sushi to inhabitants of a major metropolis is tantamount to declaring that you’ve just arrived from East Jesus Christ, Nebraska, you’re afraid to set foot outside your apartment after dusk, and you’re pulling for Jeb Bush in ’08. It doesn’t matter that I do like the taste of soy, ginger and wasabi—just not one particular vehicle for them–not to mention any number of other ethnic cuisines that have only recently gained popularity in North America. Indian? Thai? Vietnamese? Portuguese? Dominican? Korean? Moroccan? I’m there. Even Japanese, for god’s sake—just not fucking sushi.

It also doesn’t matter that I’m equally opposed to eggplant, raw tomatoes, olives, avocados, and a zillion other “normal” foods for the same basic reason I don’t like sushi: I’ve got texture issues. Serious texture issues. I can’t always pin down exactly which textures, in combination with which flavors, will set me off, but believe me when I tell you I know what I don’t like as soon as it hits my throat, and if you ever have to dine with me, you will be grateful that I’ve already spent thirty years sorting out what I can and can’t eat. Ask my Japanese-food-loving ex about the time I tried sashimi as a birthday present to him. Only, don’t ask if you yourself just ate. I have my reasons, is what I’m saying.

Nevertheless, I say, “I don’t like sushi,” and people hear, “Hi, I’m a provincial dipshit.” Actual conversation from Bex’s birthday party last year:

Friend of Bex 1: We went to the most amazing sushi restaurant for dinner! You have to try it!
Me: Actually, I don’t really like sushi.
Friend of Bex 2: Ohhh. More of a steak girl, are you?

Yes, that’s right. My failure to enjoy one kind of food automatically means I turn to The Keg for haute cuisine. Fact is, relative to sushi, hell yes, I’m a steak girl. I’m also a hundred other kinds of girl, and I’ve got the thighs to prove it. Furthermore, I love uncooked fish in the form of ceviche and gravlax, while at least half the sushi fans I know only go for barbecued salmon or, worse yet, friggin’ cucumber rolls. Ooh, you mean you’ll actually dare to eat… rice and soy sauce? How staggeringly cosmopolitan!

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5 thoughts on “Random Thing up My Ass du Jour”

Reading back through the archives, and wanted to weigh in. I have the exact same issue and have had to suffer through peoples’ lame responses to it over and over. It’s like how dare I not want to eat a raw animal(!!!). And something about the texture and the coldness and just ewww. Ew. Yeah.

Heehee. I just wandered to this post after seeing Ket’s comment. I love sushi but find it so funny that people equate sushi with the highest of foodie couture….it is raw fish people. Tasty to some (like me); appalling to others. But not a compass by which moral good or cultural awareness can be measured!

Also reading back through the archives and wanted to throw this in. My ex, who claimed he had a “sensitive stomach”, only took me out to sushi places. Even though I had told him time and time again that I. Don’t. Like. Sushi. Period. Usually, I’m not a big fan of fish and even less of a fan if they’re raw. And yeah, I like my steak, medium rare and bloody,how terribly uncouth. Like the idea of eating something that used to be alive and wriggly utterly raw is so much better. Hee. Seriously, eat what you like, but don’t assume that peoples’ preferences make them “better” in any sense.

[…] I get the most accusations of being a picky eater for, as if not liking Japanese is akin to saying “I’m a narrow-minded provincial hick who is against them damned foreign foods” (thankyou Kate Harding, and the Shapely Prose archives, for capturing the point […]

[I have decided to read the entire blog archive from the beginning, because I am bored and the placebo week of my BC is making me absolutely fucking MISERABLE, along with eating everything in sight. Urgh.]

I have serious texture issues with food too, and I always feel like I’m somehow less of a worthwhile person because I’m such a picky eater >_<